God fills sinners’ wineskins; scattering as discipline

Then he teaches, for those who sinned—as far as the wording goes—then in Jerusalem and in Judea, with what sort of wine God fills these wineskins, the sinners. For it is written: 'If they say to you, “Not knowing, we will not know that every wineskin will be filled with wine,” you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Look, I fill all who inhabit this land and the kings sitting as sons of David on his throne and the priests.' The one about to punish spares no one. Not because someone was named a prophet, yet has sins, will he not be filled with the threats spoken. Not because someone was named a priest and seemed to have the superiority of a more honored name than the people does God spare him so that he is not punished when he has sinned. And the things written about those people, the apostle says, were written for us, 'upon whom the ends of the ages have come.' If then anyone among these priests also (I mean us elders) or among these Levites standing around the people (I mean the deacons) sins, he will have this punishment—as again there are certain priestly blessings, about which, God granting, not far off but after the examination of the prophetic word we will know when Numbers is read; for something about priests is about to be said there. So 'the priests' and 'the prophets and Judah and all who inhabit Jerusalem,' God says he will fill 'with drunkenness' and scatter 'them, a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons.' And let us understand these things thus: God gathers the righteous, but scatters the sinners. Therefore also when human beings had not moved from the east, God did not scatter them; but when they moved 'from the east' and 'a man said to his neighbor: Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose head will be to heaven,' God says about them: 'Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue there,' and each is confused and scattered to some place of the earth. And the people of Israel, when not sinning, was in Judea; but having sinned is scattered afterward throughout the inhabited world and sown everywhere.

Think something of this kind with me also about all of us.

There is a 'church of firstborn enrolled in heaven,' where is Mount Zion and city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem. The blessed will be gathered there, that they may be together. But sinners are also punished in this: in not being with one another. I know some in this life who, for punishment, want to hand over to some island and, for torment, the household of someone who grieved the kingdom, scattering—here the wife, here the one son, then elsewhere the other—so that not even in the disaster the mother may enjoy the son, or the brother the brother. Think something of this kind also upon the unjust. You who are a sinner managed by God must taste something more bitter, that being disciplined you may be saved.

And just as you do not punish a household slave or son under your punishment simply wanting to torment him, but that by the pains you may turn him, so also God will discipline those not turned by the word, those not healed, with the pains from sufferings. For discipline he puts around what he puts around according to what is said: 'With toil and scourge you will always be disciplined, Jerusalem.' So that the disciplining pain may grow, those in pain are scattered from one another so that this one and that one may not be together. For the intensity of the pain would be loosened through the comfort of each toward what comes from the other.